He’s coming back. Probably. At some point.

The Huffington Post reports that “while Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is not expected to formally communicate the decision for several weeks … the Conservative Government will approve Khadr’s transfer from the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay and plans are afoot to house the 25-year-old Canadian in a federal institution with a segregated space for his own safety.”

Mark my words in the future when Harper passes away the first person they are going to ask “So what do you think of Harper” will be Omar. All this foot dragging by Harper is just going to lead to Omar being a big major part of the Harper Life Story.

The Irony is to funny. (“Harper” I’ll just ignore this and it will go away.) wrong together forever in history forever and ever…moron. lol :)

Let me get this straight. You believe when Stephen Harper dies, the first person they will interview regarding his opinion of Harper will be Omar Khadr who killed an American Medic who was trying to save injured people in a war zone? Wow! You really have twisted this story around to make “Omar” a martyr. If I didn’t know better, I would think you had gotten his history mixed up with that of Louis Riel. Do you honestly see Omar Khadr as a misunderstood Canadian hero who has been somehow mistreated rather than a Canadian citizen who went to a foreign country and took up arms against Canadian and US soldiers and hurled an incendiery device at medical personnel during an apparent lull in gunfire (as that is when the send in the medical personnel). I think there is a moron involved here, I am just not sure it is Harper.

“…will be Omar Khadr who killed an American Medic who was trying to save injured people in a war zone?”

“…and hurled an incendiery device at medical personnel during an apparent lull in gunfire (as that is when the send in the medical personnel)”

Actually anyone who followed his trial with even a modicum of fairness and objectivity knows he essentially was dragooned into making what amounted to a plea bargain: Say you’re guilty and we’ll ship you out after a reasonable amount of time to serve out your sentence at home. Do you really think he’d have only got 8 years if the US had compelling evidence that he killed that medic? OTOH there exists actual tabled evidence the US army doctored and changed testimony that indicated it was not clear Khadr was responsible for the medics death.
I’m not one of those that thinks Khadr bear zero responsibilty for his choices, but please don’t post this kind of propaganda here as if it were fact

“please don’t post this kind of propaganda here as if it were fact”…..Please feel free to chastise only me while the half-truths are flying so fast and thick here ALL based on people’s political affliations. Let’s face it, NONE of us were there and NONE of us knows exactly what happened. However, that hasn’t stopped anyone from expressing their opinions on what should happen to Mr. Khadr. The last thing I read in Macleans was that he was likely sexually assaulted although Mr. Khadr has never said that he was. Talk about propaganda. Just make sure when you are handing out the discipline, you hand it out equally to everyone on both sides of the debate because the so-called facts have been very liberally intrepreted by alot of people.

Fair enough. But you were presenting an argument as fact without mentioning that the facts are disputed. Khadr was convicted in a court, many many people who are closer to the events claim the trial was a farce. Worth mentioning at least, no?

kcm2 on September 13, 2012 at 11:00 am

To be fair, and this in no way diminishes the tragedy of his death, while Sgt. Speer was a trained medic he was nonetheless Delta Force, and he wasn’t treating the wounded when he was killed, he was clearing the compound (which is in no way a criticism, he was doing his job).

It’s undisputed that other American soldiers were still throwing grenades into the compound while Speer and his comrades were clearing it. By which I don’t mean to suggest, as some have argued, that Speers’ death was a case of friendly fire, I merely point that out as an illustration of the fact that the engagement was still ongoing as far as the Americans were concerned. There was, it’s true, a RELATIVE lull in the firefight (except for Khadr and the man next to him, everyone else who’d been in the compound with Khadr was already dead at that point, and Khadr himself was blind in one eye from shrapnel wounds). However, again, while Speer was a trained medic, I don’t believe that anyone has ever argued that he was attempting to give medical treatment to anyone at the time of his death (indeed, there was no one left to treat in the compound except for Khadr), nor even that he had any immediate intention of doing so (not that he wouldn’t have immediately done so once the fight was over, but the Americans appear to have believed that everyone inside was dead already, and the operators went inside to confirm that). Speers and his team were engaged in sweeping and clearing the compound when the grenade that killed him was thrown. One of his comrades shot the man standing near Khadr in the head just after the grenade was thrown, then that same comrade found Khadr crouching in the corner with shrapnel wounds, and shot him twice in the back.

Again, none of that in any way is a criticism of Sgt. Speer, who was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing at the time of his death, but it seems to me that the picture you imply of an unarmed medic treating wounded combatants when he was killed by a grenade is contradicted by the available evidence, and by the testimony of Speers’ comrades. Sgt. Speers was a trained medic, but he wasn’t engaging his skills as a medic at the time of his death, he was engaging his skills as a Delta Force operator (which is to say soldier). Speer was (quite properly) still engaged with the enemy when he was killed in the course of the battle, not treating wounded combatants after the battle had ended.

In a way you could argue it is irrelevant whether Khadr actually threw the grenade or not – technically he was an illegal combatant[ that’s another debate] who’s life was arguably forfeit for participating…and it is entirely possible, even likely that given the chance he would have killed Speer.
I don’t know how military law differs from the regular kind, but if he was specifically and only charged with killing Speer they didn’t have enough evidence to conclusively prove he caused Speers death.
I find it very hard to see this case as anything other than a politically motivated one. Certainly the finding was outrageous by our legal norms.

In a way you could argue it is irrelevant whether Khadr actually threw the grenade or not – technically he was an illegal combatant.

It’s murky legal ground indeed. I don’t think the notion that Khadr was an “illegal combatant” is any less debatable than the notion that he was a “child soldier”.

Whether or not he threw the grenade is still relevant either way though. True, the soldiers on the ground would have likely been entirely justified in killing him whether or not he threw the grenade (and the fact that one of them shot him twice in the back suggests that was their initial intention). That said, they DIDN’T kill him, and having not killed him, whether or not he threw the grenade is CLEARLY relevant to two of the charges he eventually plead guilty to (murder in violation of the laws of war, and attempted murder in violation of the laws of war). He also plead guilty to conspiracy, two counts of providing material support for terrorism and spying all of which presumably have nothing to do with whether or not he threw the grenade.

(I also always feel compelled to point out that in accepting the plea deal, Khadr’s choices were 1) plead guilty and we’ll sentence you to eight years, seven of which you can spend in a Canadian jail, or 2) Don’t plead guilty and we’ll keep you in a military prison indefinitely).

Lord_Kitcheners_Own on September 13, 2012 at 1:41 am

I generally think a lot of our justices but the SCoC has been shamefully deferential over Khadr’s case. I wonder why they lost their bottle on this particular case? as they’ve shown plenty of backbone in standing up to Harper in other areas.

No doubt Harper’s handling of the the Omar Khadr case had a lot to do with his winning Statesman’s of the Year from ‘The Appeal of Conscience Foundation’. Or maybe it was his statement that the greatest threat to Canada is ‘Islamicism’. Or maybe it was his magnificent effort to get the other G8 members to drop support for UN recognition of Palestine.

Whatever the reasons may be, there is no one more deserving than Mr, Harper for this prestigous award from a right wing Jewish foundation. We should all be proud.

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